A video display system is capable of presenting video images to a user. A typical video display system comprises i) a data-processing system such as a personal computer, ii) a video display, and iii) various user interface devices such as a keyboard and a pointing device. The data-processing system can be either a general-purpose computer or a special-purpose computer that comprises a processor, memory, and input and output interfaces that constitute a user interface. The data-processing system executes video display software that performs various functions on media content, such as editing, based on the commands received through the user interface devices, and provides the processed media content to the video display. The video display can be a display apparatus such as a monitor that receives a video signal from the data-processing system and creates a visual image of the signal for the user.
Video display systems are often used as a component of or as an adjunct to a broader system or application. A surveillance system, for example, enables law enforcement to request the current location, or a past location, of a particular wireless terminal. In this scenario, the wireless terminal might be under surveillance with respect to a person of interest who has been using the terminal or who is otherwise associated with the terminal. A location estimation system, whose function is to estimate the positions of wireless terminals, generates spatiotemporal data in regard to the wireless terminal being surveilled. The location estimation system then makes the data available to the surveillance system and the video display system, which can track the person of interest, display the data to a display system user, and so forth.
A challenge with at least some video display systems in the prior art is to take large amounts of data and to reduce it to what a user needs. In present-day telecommunications systems, for example, it is possible to generate tremendous amounts of spatiotemporal data for millions of wireless terminals within just a single coverage area of a wireless service provider. In this situation, it is often unrealistic to expect a user of a video display system to be able to pare down the data without some type of assistance, especially in surveillance scenarios that are time-critical. Indeed, there are certain scenarios, such as those that are driven by the exigent demands of finding a terrorist member of an organization, which make an effective presentation of relevant data to a user particularly important.
What is needed is an improved representation of data without at least some of the disadvantages in the prior art.